Banana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Bannana)
For the plant genus to which bananas belong,
see Musa (genus). For other uses, see Banana
(disambiguation).

Fruits of four different banana cultivars

A banana is an edible fruit, botanically a berry,[1][2] produced
by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in
the genus Musa.[3] (In some countries, bananas used for
cooking may be called plantains.) The fruit is variable in size,
color and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with
soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind which may be
green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits
grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant. Almost all
modern edible parthenocarpic (seedless) bananas come from
two wild species Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana.
The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa
acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and Musa paradisiaca for the
hybrid Musa acuminata M. balbisiana, depending on
their genomic constitution. The old scientific name Musa
sapientum is no longer used.
Musa species are native to
tropical Indomalaya and Australia, and are likely to have
been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea.[4][5] They are
grown in at least 107 countries,[6]primarily for their fruit, and
to a lesser extent to make fiber, banana wine and banana
beer and as ornamental plants.

Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between "bananas"

and "plantains". Especially in the Americas and Europe,
"banana" usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas,
particularly those of the Cavendish group, which are the
main exports from banana-growing countries. By
contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called
"plantains". In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many
more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the simple
two-fold distinction is not useful and is not made in local
languages.
The term "banana" is also used as the common name for the
plants which produce the fruit.[3] This can extend to other
members of the genus Musa like the scarlet banana (Musa
coccinea), pink banana (Musa velutina) and the Fe'i bananas.
It can also refer to members of the genus Ensete, like
the snow banana (Ensete glaucum) and the economically
important false banana (Ensete ventricosum). Both genera
are classified under the banana family, Musaceae.
Contents
[hide]

1 Description

2 Etymology

3 Taxonomy

4 Bananas and plantains

5 Historical cultivation
o

5.1 Early cultivation

5.2 Plantation cultivation in the Caribbean, Central

and South America

5.3 Peasant cultivation for export in the Caribbean

5.4 East Africa

6 Modern cultivation
o

6.1 Cavendish

6.2 Ripening

6.3 Storage and transport

6.4 Production and export

7 Pests, diseases, and natural disasters

7.1 Panama disease

7.1.1 Tropical race 4

7.2 Black sigatoka

7.2.1 In East Africa

7.3 Banana bunchy top virus

7.4 Banana bacterial wilt

8 Nutrition

9 Culture
9.1 Food and cooking

9.1.1 Fruit

9.1.2 Flower

9.1.3 Leaves

9.1.4 Trunk
9.2 Fiber

9.2.1 Textiles

9.2.2 Paper
9.3 Cultural roles

9.3.1 Arts

9.3.2 Religion and popular beliefs

9.4 Other uses

10 Notes

11 References

12 Bibliography

13 Further reading

14 External links
Description

A banana corm, about 25 cm (10 in) across

Banana farm at Chinawal, India

The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant.
[7]
All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a
structure usually called a "corm".[8] Plants are normally tall
and fairly sturdy, and are often mistaken for trees, but what
appears to be a trunk is actually a "false stem"
or pseudostem. Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as
long as the soil is at least 60 cm deep, has good drainage
and is not compacted.[9] The leaves of banana plants are
composed of a "stalk" (petiole) and a blade (lamina). The
base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the tightly
packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, which is all that
supports the plant. The edges of the sheath meet when it is
first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in
the centre of the pseudostem the edges are forced apart.
[10]
Cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on the
variety and growing conditions. Most are around 5 m (16 ft)
tall, with a range from 'Dwarf Cavendish' plants at around
3 m (10 ft) to 'Gros Michel' at 7 m (23 ft) or more.[11]
[12]
Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow 2.7 metres
(8.9 ft) long and 60 cm (2.0 ft) wide.[1] They are easily torn
by the wind, resulting in the familiar frond look. [13]
When a banana plant is mature, the corm stops producing
new leaves and begins to form a flower spike
or inflorescence. A stem develops which grows up inside the

pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until

eventually it emerges at the top.[14] Each pseudostem
normally produces a single inflorescence, also known as the
"banana heart". (More are sometimes produced; an
exceptional plant in the Philippines produced five.[15]) After
fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will normally
have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole
is perennial. In the plantation system of cultivation, only one
of the offshoots will be allowed to develop in order to
maintain spacing.[16] The inflorescence contains
many bracts (sometimes incorrectly referred to as petals)
between rows of flowers. The female flowers (which can
develop into fruit) appear in rows further up the stem (closer
to the leaves) from the rows of male flowers. The ovary
is inferior, meaning that the tiny petals and other flower
parts appear at the tip of the ovary. [17]
The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large
hanging cluster, made up of tiers (called "hands"), with up to
20 fruit to a tier. The hanging cluster is known as a bunch,
comprising 320tiers, or commercially as a "banana stem",
and can weigh 3050 kilograms (66110 lb). Individual
banana fruits (commonly known as a banana or "finger")
average 125 grams (0.276 lb), of which approximately 75%
is water and 25% dry matter.[citation needed]
The fruit has been described as a "leathery berry". [18] There
is a protective outer layer (a peel or skin) with numerous
long, thin strings (the phloem bundles), which run lengthwise
between the skin and the edible inner portion. The inner part
of the common yellow dessert variety can be split lengthwise
into three sections that correspond to the inner portions of
the three carpels by manually deforming the unopened fruit.
[19]
In cultivated varieties, the seeds are diminished nearly to
non-existence; their remnants are tiny black specks in the
interior of the fruit.[20]
Bananas are naturally slightly radioactive,[21][22] more so than
most other fruits, because of their potassium content and
the small amounts of the isotope potassium-40 found in
naturally occurring potassium.[23] The banana equivalent

dose of radiation is sometimes used in nuclear

communication to compare radiation levels and exposures.
[24]

Banana 'tree' showing fruit and inflorescence.

Banana inflorescence, partially opened

Female flowers have petals and other flower parts at the tip
of the ovary
Etymology
The word banana is thought to be of West African origin,
possibly from the Wolof word banaana, and passed into
English via Spanish or Portuguese.[25]

Taxonomy

The Musa 'Nendran' cultivar grown widely in theIndian state

of Kerala is a member of the AAB cultivar group
The genus Musa was created by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
[26]
The name may be derived from Antonius Musa, physician
to the Emperor Augustus, or Linnaeus may have adapted
the Arabicword for banana, mauz.[27] Musa is in the
family Musaceae. The APG III system assigns Musaceae to
the order Zingiberales, part of the commelinid clade of
the monocotyledonous flowering plants. Some 70 species
of Musa were recognized by the World Checklist of Selected
Plant Families as of January 2013;[26] several produce edible
fruit, while others are cultivated as ornamentals. [28]
The classification of cultivated bananas has long been a
problematic issue for taxonomists. Linnaeus originally placed
bananas into two species based only on their uses as
food: Musa sapientum for dessert bananas and Musa
paradisiaca for plantains. Subsequently further species
names were added. However, this approach proved
inadequate to address the sheer number of cultivars existing
in the primary center of diversity of the genus, Southeast
Asia. Many of these cultivars were given names which
proved to be synonyms.[29]
In a series of papers published in 1947 onwards, Ernest
Cheesman showed that Linnaeus's Musa
sapientum and Musa paradisiaca were actually cultivars and
descendants of two wild seed-producing species, Musa
acuminata and Musa balbisiana, both first described by Luigi

Aloysius Colla.[30] He recommended the abolition of

Linnaeus's species in favor of reclassifying bananas
according to three morphologically distinct groups of
cultivars those primarily exhibiting the botanical
characteristics of Musa balbisiana, those primarily exhibiting
the botanical characteristics of Musa acuminata, and those
with characteristics that are the combination of the two.
[29]
Researchers Norman Simmonds and Ken Shepherd
proposed a genome-based nomenclature system in 1955.
This system eliminated almost all the difficulties and
inconsistencies of the earlier classification of bananas based
on assigning scientific names to cultivated varieties. Despite
this, the original names are still recognized by some
authorities today, leading to confusion. [30][31]
The currently accepted scientific names for most groups of
cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata Colla and Musa
balbisiana Colla for the ancestral species,
and Musa paradisiaca L. for the hybrid M.
acuminata M. balbisiana.[32]
Synonyms of M. paradisica include:

A large number of subspecific and varietial names

of M. paradisiaca, including M. p. subsp. sapientum (L.)
Kuntze

Musa dacca Horan.

Musa sapidisiaca K.C.Jacob, nom. superfl.

Musa sapientum L., and a large number of its varietal

names, including M. sapientum var. paradisiaca (L.)
Baker, nom. illeg.

Generally, modern classifications of banana cultivars follow

Simmonds and Shepherd's system. Cultivars are placed in
groups based on the number of chromosomes they have and
which species they are derived from. Thus the Latundan
banana is placed in the AAB Group, showing that it is a
triploid derived from both M. acuminata (A) and M.

balbisiana (B). For a list of the cultivars classified under this

system see List of banana cultivars.
In 2012, a team of scientists announced they had achieved a
draft sequence of the genome of Musa acuminata.[33]
Bananas and plantains
In regions such as North America and Europe, Musa fruits
offered for sale can be divided into "bananas" and
"plantains", based on their intended use as food. Thus the
banana producer and distributor Chiquita produces publicity
material for the American market which says that "a plantain
is not a banana". The stated differences are that plantains
are more starchy and less sweet; they are eaten cooked
rather than raw; they have thicker skin, which may be green,
yellow or black; and they can be used at any stage of
ripeness.[34] Linnaeus made the same distinction between
plantains and bananas when first naming two "species"
of Musa.[35] Members of the "plantain subgroup" of banana
cultivars, most important as food in West Africa and Latin
America, correspond to the Chiquita description, having long
pointed fruit. They are described by Ploetz et al. as "true"
plantains, distinct from other cooking bananas. [36] The
cooking bananas of East Africa belong to a different group,
the East African Highland bananas,[12] so would not qualify as
"true" plantains on this definitio